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CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

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Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#121

Post by smsm42 »

T-hawk wrote: post #86
azernik wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem

This actually hit my previous company in a software context. We would number hotfixes sequentially. Customers would be notified when hotfixes were to be deployed to their sites. One savvy client noticed the hotfix numbering sequence and worked out both that we had a lot of hotfixes (tens per week) and that they didn't get them all right away (if you don't ask for it, it comes to you in the next quarterly trunk releas…

Why not add random increments to the sequence? This way order is preserved, but you never know how many hotfixes are between hotfix X and Y. Of course, you can still have rough estimate (as between #1000 and #2000 there is from 999 to 10 hotfixes) but for your case it may be enough.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#122

Post by [deleted] »

dogma1138 wrote: post #79
sanoli wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a lot of this going. Comes to mind right now the way the Navy had about two seal teams in the beginning, and then decided to name the next one 'Team 6', to make it look like they had more. I've read about other examples, but can't remember right now.

Giving random numbers to regiments and battalions isn't new it's done partially due to historic honor and to prevent the enemy from getting accurate strength numbers by simply counting unit numbers.

[deleted]

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#123

Post by ishi »

kamaal wrote: post #55
hyperpallium wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like carrots. The British promulgated the belief that carrots improve eyesight to explain the effective of their aircraft spotters, instead of radar.

>>Like carrots. Poor thing. As a kid I told my cousin(he wore glasses), that carrots were good for the eyes, to a point I exaggerated if he ate enough he could get rid of them altogether at some point. He would eat kgs of carrots.

My mom thought so too. At some point she took me to the doctor and asked him why I had orange feet. He told her to stop feeding me so much carrot.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#124

Post by melloclello »

sanoli wrote: post #87
sanoli wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a lot of this going. Comes to mind right now the way the Navy had about two seal teams in the beginning, and then decided to name the next one 'Team 6', to make it look like they had more. I've read about other examples, but can't remember right now.

Not the same thing but similar, a programmer wrote once how he made his software delay the answer to some user action to make it look like the program was hard at work. The process was actually very fast, almost instantaneous, so he added some message like " working - x seconds left ". Maybe it was on HN some years ago...

I did the same thing once for a dialog box on an iPhone app. The check would fail instantly if the phone was offline. It didn't feel "right" and we didn't really have the time to change the UX so I just added a random delay of between 1.0 to 1.5 seconds. Still in production today.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#125

Post by morgante »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #103
xupybd wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow what country still uses cheques? Most stores won't take them anymore, here in New Zealand.

While no stores take checks here in the US either, it's far more common to use for settling personal debts. Also, many utility bills are most commonly paid by check here as well (for those who don't pay online), as people do not mail cash.

> While no stores take checks here in the US either

My mother still routinely pays for nearly everything (groceries, pizza, hardware, etc.) using personal checks. She lives in a small town though.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#126

Post by mikkom »

antidamage wrote: post #62
jimrandomh wrote: post #22

I'm surprised they're continuing the misdirection so many years later. "Unidentified flying object" means an aircraft, usually a military one (because civilian aircraft are easier to identify). A UFO over US soil would usually be a USAF plane, but the CIA ran (runs?) a reporting hotline because they might occasionally be foreign spy planes instead. But of course, the Soviets were very interested (or the US believed t…

I doubt the CIA were gaming Google in the 60s. It's also beyond ridiculous to think that a superpower like the USSR couldn't completely evaluate any material that came their way. The fake aircraft seems more reasonable though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamov_Ka-50#Development > The first two Ka-50 prototypes had false windows painted on them.[19] The "windows" evidently worked, as the first western reports of the…

> I doubt the CIA were gaming Google in the 60s

Not Google but they were gaming ufo people. Thee was a good documentary about this called "Mirage Men"

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/aug/14/men-in-black-ufo...

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#127

Post by enkephalin »

Houshalter wrote: post #115
isaiahg wrote: post #72

At this point we're pretty settled that alien life probably exists in some form out there. Whether that alien life could evolve to create technology and build spacecraft is another thing. But the even bigger thing is when you take into account just how vast the distances involved are. It's just so unlikely that alien life could exist, develop technology, and then be in the same neighborhood as us.

Not really unlikely if you consider the vast scale of time as well. A few million years is enough to reach the end of the galaxy even at very very low percent of the speed of light. That's a long time in our terms, but a very short time given the age of the universe, or even our own planet. Self replicating Von Neumann probes could handle the issue of exploring such a large number of solar systems by increasing their…

i think the main issue with people having trouble believing in visitations from extraterrestrial species (or at least their technology), is that they have absolutely no sense for the age of the universe.

and the fact that so many people believe it to be utterly ridiculous that alien life forms could be exploring the galaxy, yet here we humans are, doing exactly that, is just completely mind-boggling to me.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#128

Post by yetihehe »

sanoli wrote: post #87
sanoli wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a lot of this going. Comes to mind right now the way the Navy had about two seal teams in the beginning, and then decided to name the next one 'Team 6', to make it look like they had more. I've read about other examples, but can't remember right now.

Not the same thing but similar, a programmer wrote once how he made his software delay the answer to some user action to make it look like the program was hard at work. The process was actually very fast, almost instantaneous, so he added some message like " working - x seconds left ". Maybe it was on HN some years ago...

There were many such programmers, myself including. I don't even want to check if that software still lives, it was security theater abomination.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#129

Post by enkephalin »

Laaw wrote: post #120
krapp wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a big difference between learning that they exist, and learning that they exist here. If some alien force with incomprehensible power and an unknown agenda, has been acting at will on Earth for who knows how long, then humans are not the dominant form of intelligent life on Earth, and have possibly never been in charge of their own destiny. What are we, then? Animals in a zoo? Specimens in a lab? Play…

Like I said, we can speculate over what might or might happen all day, but do we have any evidence ? Just seems like you're doomsday fantasizing...

history has shown us that we humans are so afraid of other humans that are not exactly like us, that we readily sacrifice values that are absolutely essential to the advancement of society, and our well being in general.

the knowledge of uncontrollable alien life forms visiting us, and maybe interacting or interfering with our lives, would very likely cause a world wide panic of epic proportions.

Re: CIA declassifies hundreds of UFO documents

#130

Post by animal531 »

StavrosK wrote: post #69
kamaal wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Like carrots. Poor thing. As a kid I told my cousin(he wore glasses), that carrots were good for the eyes, to a point I exaggerated if he ate enough he could get rid of them altogether at some point. He would eat kgs of carrots.

Well, carrots are delicious, so no harm done.

Harmless yes, but with carotenosis you might turn orange.
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